


The Shadows Suit Me

by shadowssuitme



Series: Shadows Bright [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Twincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 19:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15372126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowssuitme/pseuds/shadowssuitme
Summary: When Luke and Leia met, it was unknown to both of them that the princess had become pregnant during her interrogation on the first Death Star. Their budding romance became complicated by this fact, but, when Leia decided to keep the baby, Luke's connection and feelings of responsibility to her only grew, leading to their eventual marriage. Now, seven years after the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of their father, we find Luke living alone, depressed, drug-addicted, and destitute, pining endlessly for Leia and ruining his life with every chance he gets. It could go on this way forever--but destiny cannot be switched off, only delayed. He can't hide from Leia. This work contrasts past and present in two parallel narratives.*While there are a great deal of rape mentions in this story, all of the acts happen "off-screen," and are not described.In 2004, I started writing the Shadows Suit Me.  Then a 90-page novella, it was completed the following summer, about thirteen years ago.  Last year, I decided it was time to revise it and post it to AO3, which had not existed at the time of its composition.  This is that revision and expansion.





	1. Prologue

The Shadows Suit Me

Prologue

I suppose there was a time when we were happy.

I remember it that way at least. Leia...well, who knows about her. All I know for sure is that the light and dark seem to come in turns for me. I don't get both in balance like other people. And the dark has stayed now far too long.

The sun is setting behind the towers of the Imperial Palace. It's winter, but it's been so dry lately that there isn't any snow on the rooftops or on the balcony where I sit, no frost clinging to the windows and walls. I didn't grow up with this cold, but I got used to it. I suppose I should be wearing a jacket or something, but it doesn't matter. Not to anyone but me, at least, and if I'm the only one who cares about me then there's no point in bothering to take care of myself. I watch as the lights turn on one by one in the Palace as people realize, blinking up from computer screens, data pads, and dinner, that night has all but fallen. I let the apartment behind me remain unlit. The shadows suit me.

In one of those rooms across Imperial City, through one of those lit windows in the Palace, there's a seven-year-old, blue-eyed boy called Anakin. Leia once implied, years ago, something about my own character by drawing a sharp distinction between Vader and Anakin Skywalker. We've never talked about it, but I still know that Leia named the boy after that idea, even though I'd left. I don't understand. At least, I don't think I do.

There's another, dark-eyed and ten. Ben.

I put out my spice stick in the ashtray beside my chair. I can still see my breath, even though it's no longer mixed with smoke. But I'm not cold, anymore, as I feel the warmth from the spice tingle through my body. I close my eyes and lean my head back in my chair. It washes over me, the rush like cold water and a warm blanket at the same time, flushing my skin and raising every hair on my body, numbing my emotions, dulling my thoughts and senses and pain. It's like pins all over, but it's so soft and gentle. Euphoria without really feeling like anything at all. Wide-awake and so far away you're practically gone.

The rush only lasts for the beginning of the high, and you feel empty after it goes away. Sometimes embarrassed. Sometimes angry. Always low. Especially when you tell yourself so often that this is going to be the last time.

Sitting up, I listlessly regard the crowded ashtray on the duracrete floor. Last time. Right.

As if I would have been a good father, anyway.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter 1

 

I don't like to think about it, but I always think about it anyway. That's one of the things the spice is for. To make the story stop.

 

I thought I'd understood fear when, at the age of eighteen, I'd found Leia crying, curled into a little ball in an empty hanger at the Alliance Yavin base a few hours after the award ceremony. Everyone else was at the party in the other room, and her absence had nagged at me until I'd found her. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong, but I was a good little boy and took care of her, incapable of predicting the severity of her personal tragedy. I assumed it was about Alderaan, and that she didn't want to talk about it, and I couldn't blame her. It was certainly a lot about Alderaan, but days later she told me that she thought she was pregnant. I think she actually said, “My period's late and I'm worried I'm pregnant and I can't even com my father,” in one breath, and I just stared at her with wide, helpless farmboy eyes. I'd been confused and momentarily devastated by directionless jealousy, because that must mean that there was someone else, and if she was more upset about not being able to tell _her_ father than not being able to tell the baby's father, I thought that must mean that he was here with the Alliance, only I didn't know how I hadn't realized one of the men on base was her boyfriend.

 

But there wasn't anyone else, not on Alderaan, not at the base, not anywhere, and I felt like a selfish idiot when I finally pieced together what had happened. It turns out it's common knowledge among Rebels that Imperial Stormtroopers—and sometimes even officers—didn't see women for months or years at a time, since the Empire didn't usually recruit or enlist them, and the standard interrogation techniques that they used basically implicitly advocated the use of rape as a motivator. It wouldn't have surprised anyone with the Alliance that Leia had been mistreated the way that she had, no one but me. I couldn't believe such cruelty existed in the Galaxy. And she had been on the receiving end of so much cruelty already.

 

Leia couldn't have been unaware of what happened to other prisoners, and she had even suspected what was going on in her own body within a very sort time of it happening, but it was such an emotional shock to her that, aside from the initial crying and the one time she admitted it to me, she totally froze. I guess trauma can do that to you, no matter how strong and intelligent you are. When she started to show, it was too late to get an abortion in any of the Imperial systems, and we tried to go elsewhere, but Leia eventually decided to keep the baby. I think she just wanted one thing in her life that was new and hopeful. Once she said to me, “Alderaan's gone and...I want a family. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.”

 

Meanwhile, I followed her around like a loyal pet, taking care of her, making sure she ate, being there for her to talk to. I needed her to talk to, too. I'd just lost my aunt and uncle, my mentor, and by best friend, and I was suddenly in the middle of a new career that was exciting and everything I'd ever wanted, but it was all happening so fast and I was having a hard time adjusting emotionally. Leia became my touchstone immediately, and I think I was hers. She was like someone I'd known my whole life. I got nervous around her whenever I tried to tell her how I felt about her, but, otherwise, our conversations flowed as if they were half-telepathic. We discovered quickly that we slept better the nearer we were to one another. I had a new best friend. The crush I'd had on her since the first time I saw her holo turned into deep, unfaltering love.

 

Han, in the rare moments he was around—it became more as the war went on—managed to figure out Leia's secret, not only that she was pregnant, but how it happened. So little about people got past him. When she wasn't around, he'd tease me by calling the baby mine, which I thought was just supposed to make me feel awkward about how obvious my feelings were. I finally asked him to stop, and asked him why he did it to begin with, because it seemed pretty disrespectful. “Look, kid,” he said, dropping the gag, leaning towards me, “If you two get together—and you're gonna, you know you are—then you're gonna be starin' down the barrel of a loaded fatherhood, and I know you're dumb enough to go through with it. I'm just tryin' to get you used to the idea so you know what you're gettin' yourself into.”

 

I _was_ getting used to the idea. I thought Leia looked even more beautiful pregnant. More and more, she was able to forget how this had happened to her, and she was happy that she wasn't alone after Alderaan, that she had the baby on the way, that she had my friendship, and in those moments she would just glow. We spent more and more evenings together when we got off duty, and we'd cuddle and talk about our daydreams for the future. New settlements where Alderaan survives could live together. The Empire would be long gone. I'd be there with her and her son. I'd be damned if I wasn't going to help her make the best life for both of them that I could.

 

It was on a night away from the rest of the Alliance in a hotel room that Leia and I had finally made love. I hadn't expected it, then or ever. I'd resolved never to come on to her, because I never wanted to hurt her or remind her of what had happened. Besides which, I was a virgin, and my limited experiences with one girl on Tatooine hadn't really prepared me for that kind of interaction. We'd talked earlier in the day and admitted we were in love—both of us!—and I suppose it was what drove us. That night, I told her that I wanted to raise the baby with her. She told me, “As far as I'm concerned, he's yours.” So he became mine.

 

When I found the Alderaanian engagement broach in a flea market a few months later, I bought it on impulse. Han had rolled his eyes and reminded me that I'd only known her a short time and I might be moving a little fast, but I was immediately resolved. I'd barely thought it through, true, but I knew it was what I wanted. When we got back to base, I found that a very-pregnant Leia had been ordered by Mon Mothma to take some time off, and when I found her in the quarters we shared I couldn't believe how big she was. When I could finally tear myself away from kissing her for a second, I told her I had something for her, and gave her the jewelry box. An incredulous smirk turned into shock when she opened it. “Luke, do you know what this is?” she asked, clearly thinking I must not know.

 

I was worried for a moment that maybe I didn't actually know, but I couldn't force a sentence out of my mouth. I thought that I might be so very in the wrong—even if I was right about what the broach meant. Leia was a princess. Was she supposed to marry royalty? We hadn't talked about it. Maybe she was hoping to make a political alliance for which she'd need to agree to a marriage contract. I was so naive. What was I doing? But I _thought_ I knew what the broach meant, and I new what I wanted, so I just nodded.

 

She smiled hesitantly and raised her eyebrows. “Are you proposing to me?”

 

I smiled awkwardly, and then we were both smiling, and laughing, and then kissing again, and I couldn't believe how in love with her I was right then and every other second I knew her. We were perfect together. It had to mean something. I hadn't been wrong after all. “Will you marry me?” I asked her, her round, fair face in my hands, and Leia laughed joyfully and blinked tears out of her dark eyes.

 

“Yes,” she said confidently, nodding.

 

We were married by Mon Mothma only days later, because we wanted to be sure to do it before the baby came, mostly because we knew how busy we'd be with an infant on our hands and a war going on. We barely had a wedding, but Leia had something to wear hastily made anyway, since almost none of her old clothes fit. She was close to term at that point, and she spent most of her time exhausted and frustrated, and she was starting to get nervous about the birth and I knew it was bringing up the trauma of the conception for her, but I think none of it weighed on her that day. She seemed so relaxed. I will never get the image of her in her wedding dress out of my head. She looked like a picture from a mythology book, an ethereal mother goddess, pale blue vineskilk falling in gathers over her round stomach, a golden ribbon tied around her hair, more beautiful than I ever could have imagined in all of my daydreams. My wife, the mother of my son. And me just an awed kid from the desert reflecting her light.

 

We took a few days off to honeymoon, even though we didn't leave the base. I was already getting teased by the rest of my squadron about being an old married man, but it couldn't have bothered me less. I had Leia to go home to for the rest of my life. Nothing could ever bother me again.

 

The baby came two weeks early, after thirty hours of labor, and it was the most stressful day of my life up until that point. When I looked into Ben Skywalker's black eyes for the first time, though, I knew it had all been worth it. It never felt like he wasn't really mine. I mean, he _was_ mine. I held him the day he was born and we looked at each other, and he became mine. And he looked just like his mother. I couldn't believe how much I loved him.

 

I remember I was sitting at Leia's bedside a few hours after Ben's birth, holding the sleeping baby swaddled in my arms, too happy to sleep, too tired to sleep almost, when Leia stirred awake and turned to me. My greeting smile faded when she said, mournfully, “Luke, I have to tell you something. Don't hate me. I didn't know how to tell you. I think I had to see him before I could.”  
  


I furrowed my brow and said lowly, “Leia, what are you talking about?”

 

“I know we never really talked about it, but...I know who it was.”

 

I frowned, then sat back a little when I realized what she meant. She knew who it was on the Death Star. Ben's biological father. I'd always assumed it was a Stormtrooper, and she'd always let me assume. I was stunned for a second, and then I thought about all of the names of Imperial Officers that I actually knew, and there weren't many, and most of those I knew died on the Death Star. I doubted any name would mean anything to me. And I didn't see how it changed anything, anyway. Maybe she just wanted to tell me, for herself, so she didn't have to know it alone.

 

While I was considering it, Leia burst into tears, then choked them back. “Don't hold it against me that I didn't tell you--”

 

“Leia, it doesn't make any difference--”

 

“It was _Vader_ , Luke.”

 

In retrospect, it's actually kind of cute how much that scared me. I had no idea what scared was.

 

But the fear turned straight into anger the moment I looked down at Ben. I wasn't afraid of Vader, and I couldn't be afraid of his son. He wasn't Vader's son, anyway. He was Leia's son. And I was going to raise him. He couldn't ever be anything like Vader.

 

When I looked back at my wife—so completely traumatized but so unbelievably tough—all I could think about was how much Vader had to answer for, and wonder how it was that so much of this man's destruction could possibly surround me at every turn. I shifted closer to Leia, pushing my anger back so that I could just be calm and stable for her, and set the baby on the bed beside her as I leaned down and kissed both of them on their foreheads. “You don't owe it to me to tell me about any of that, okay? We can talk about it if you ever want to, but if you don't...you don't have to feel guilty. Besides, this doesn't change _anything_ ,” I said with total confidence.

 

She nodded.

 

I found out years later that it changed everything.

 

* * *

 

Out on my balcony, I shut my eyes against the memory, shedding a hot tear on my on frozen cheek. I wipe it away impatiently. Clenching my teeth, I rush inside, not bothering to close the door behind me, to the drawer in the tiny kitchen where I keep my box of spice sticks and other supplies. The box is empty. I sit tiredly on the kitchen floor. Gone. Blast. “Fuck,” I breathe.

 

Slumping against the wall, I breathe deeply against the headache I'm already getting. What am I gonna do?

 

I'll take a hot shower, I think. It'll warm me up and relax my tense muscles.

 

Then I'll go to that cantina just below here. I know at least one pusher who's bound to be there, even though he asks too much. I guess sometimes part of what you're paying for is convenience. I can put it off a little bit, though. If I can't wait half an hour then...well, _then_ I'll admit to myself I have a problem. Or maybe I'm just trying to put off going out in public. There are _people_ out there.

 

I stand, and from the kitchen I can still see the Palace. It draws me back out to the balcony as I fixate on its twinkling lights. I worry about her still. Every day. I wonder if she's doing as badly as I am, but I don't think she is. I know her, and she has the ability to change darkness to a nova—I used to think I had that ability, too. Everything she's ever done has been so self-assured and so sincere, and, as it turns out, I am not like that. Nothing has ever held her back. Not from finishing her doctorate in her teens, from being elected to the senate, from becoming an Alliance spy, from going on after Alderaan, from deciding to have a family when she had the opportunity in spite of what others might have said and thought. Now she's president of the new government. The Galaxy needs her. We're nothing alike.

 

Besides, she'd be strong for the kids no matter what. I really doubt they'll ever know why I left. I hope they don't, anyway.

 

I sigh and close the door, and then the dark curtains that block the light. This building is cheap enough that the transparasteel doesn't have dimmers.

 

I feel the familiar sting of guilt when I think about my kids, but I remind myself that Han takes care of them. It's not as if they don't have a father. Guilt turns into bitterness, jealousy, resentment, self-righteousness. At least that part wasn't my fault, I think with some satisfaction that quickly dims as I wonder again if I could have handled it better. But it doesn't matter anyway. Han takes care of Leia, now. I mean, I asked him to. He never would have denied me that.

 

Thinking about Han does nothing to make me feel better. “Yeah,” I murmur ironically to myself, remembering the recent breaking news from the first family, “I bet he takes real good care of her.”

 

 


End file.
